Blogging in Plain Sight
Or blogging plain insights, take your pick.
Every time I look at what I've posted, I think of the real stories that underlie what I've written and realize "Wow, this is the boring version." But then again I spend a great deal of time around people who cherish their privacy above much else. Who knows if my friend wants me to reveal our heated debate over the indexing one's hosted web mail, both of us finally agreeing that the only real answer is if it's that important to you, you need to admin your own mail server? Perhaps it's not quite right to talk about the great woman I met while traveling, geeky and an artist, and how I hope she gets on well with my other friend. The stories I heard about Hurricane Katrina from my close friends, and now new friends I made during my recent visit to New Orleans, are not my stories; it seems like insensitivity of the cruelest kind to rant about what I've heard when those who actually experienced this suffering stoically muse through what happened to them.
Some people I know want no trace of themselves out in the online world; others I remember to ask, so defaulting to strict privacy is not the only option. Let's not even get into the realm of what one does not discuss on one's blog if maintaining the veneer of professionalism. The stories seem so much less without names, the faces they conjure up, the histories I've learned, and the corresponding tangibility that comes with them. Still, these are not my secrets to share nor stories to tell.
So, I have one that I feel like sharing now. It's only mine.
There has been an email sitting in my inbox since March 15th. I'm a bit behind on mail at the moment, but not that behind. It's sitting in there because, literally, I've been sitting on it as a reminder to do something about it. Here goes. I've abridged the background a great deal (and yes it is still really long) but if people really want to hear the whole story they are welcome to let me know and I'll see if I can find time for it. It's bloody amusing at this point, though at the time it was just darn strange and uncomfortable.
After my first Summer of Code, I heard from many students who wanted to come by the big-G to tour the campus and give a presentation on their project; needless to say, the famous free lunch figured prominently in each visit. I received yet another such mail from a student, letting me know he'd decided to spend his program stipend to come to the United States, and letting me know he wanted to visit Google. He also asked if I wouldn't mind picking him up at the airport. I'm a nice person, he was coming in on a Saturday and the San Jose Airport was all of fifteen minutes drive from my house. I said yes and made arrangements to do so.
When I met said student at the airport, I immediately noticed that he was both odd and completely out of his element. Odd, I can deal with though. I work with Open Source communities. Odd is something of the order of the day. Besides, being a bit odd myself, I tend to suspend judgement about the oddness of others, usually with great success. On the out of his element front, it was simply a feeling that this person wasn't well equipped to cope with the strangeness of American suburbia that those of us who live within it take for granted. It struck me that he was from a small town in a country very far away, and he was ill prepared experience-wise and finances-wise for the madness of the Silicon Valley concrete jungle. Dose of extreme culture shock, coming right up. I noticed it even in his reaction to the freeway as I drove him to his lodgings.
I dropped him off at his motel, a clean and inexpensive place in Mountain View. He asked if I'd like to get together the next day. I had a friend from out of town coming for lunch, so I suggested he join us. I picked him up and brought him to our house, where we ate and chatted for a bit. The four of us. One friend, one Ben, one me, one student. When doing due diligence later, it was confirmed that no one got the creepy vibe from him, simply the odd vibe.
Plot point: I'd just like to reiterate that he met my fiancé on his second day in the country.
Lunch proceeded as lunches among those who were newly-strangers often does. Polite conversation. Inquiries about travel experiences. Questions about what said student planned to do during visit. Food was consumed. TV was watched. Student was quiet and tended to stare at people a bit, but when I asked if he was comfortable he simply apologized for his poor English. I felt a bit bad for him, as he was clearly ashamed, told him not to worry about it as I spoke terrible [language censored to protect the guilty], and took him back to his motel. He asked about visiting Google on Monday, so I said sure, gave him instructions on where to ask for me, the usual.
Monday rolled around and promptly at 10:00 reception informed me I had a visitor. He'd apparently learned to navigate the none too easy to understand local public transit, which gave me hope that he was adapting quickly and would have a good time of it while in California. I headed out and gave my student visitor the usual tour of Google's campus, reminding him to keep an eye on the cafés so he could decide where he wanted to have lunch. He declined; apparently he'd met another Google employee while at Church that weekend, and planned to have lunch with him. A cafe off main campus had, apparently, been recommended. Making new friends in a strange place, another very positive sign. Maybe he wasn't the country bumpkin I'd thought him to be.
I showed him the sights, genuinely happy; the apprehension I had about his getting along here evaporated, replaced with a well-deserved bout of mental self-flagellation for imposing my uninformed white American values on my poor unassuming visitor. Resolutions to be a better person made, notes on lesson learned made.
We ended our tour at my desk, where the traditional raiding of the swag cabinet occurred, and it was good. Swag was obtained for family and fiancée. Existence of fiancée is also reassuring, as it confirms that all that staring is, in fact, just a personal quirk. The usual geek oddness. Nothing to see here, move along. Fantastic.
He asked me to call my co-worker for him and mentioned the name of someone I knew from our Legal department; he hadn't gotten his number. Well, since he didn't have a phone with him, why would he? Co-worker came over and the two of them departed for lunch further afield, student leaving his stuff at my desk since he was now so swag laden as to make walking impossible. I sipped coffee and settled back into the project I'd been working on an hour and a half ago.
A lunch's worth of time passed. Co-worker returned student to my desk. He asks me if I can read something for him. I say sure. He hands me a pamphlet from a local Church advertising its shelter services for the homeless. Whoa. I ask him where he got it, and he told me he had asked the Priest for a place to stay while he was visiting, but was told that it was not possible. He asked me again what the flyer said about where he could find a place to stay, as the motel was expensive and he wanted to save his money.
I was afraid if I explained to him what he was actually holding it would embarrass him terribly. I didn't know how to explain that such trends of hospitality are not really known any longer among my people. That we had been like that once, a long long time ago, but not any more. That I thought his way was a lot better after all, and I could even get into a long exegesis on the rhetoric and perceived cultural value of hospitality among the Celts and early Anglo-Saxons, and how this influenced the creation of our legal system, but that was probably going a bit too far. I couldn't even tell him what he was holding meant.
I told him that it wasn't relevant and suggested he research youth hostels. I let him know that most of them were up in San Francisco and that he could get the Caltrain. He asked me to research options for him and I pointed out to him that I was in the middle of my work day, but had a spare computer to lend him. I set him up with our guest wireless and a computer and told him to let me know if he needed anything. He sat quietly for a couple of hours as I burned through my inbox.
When he finally came over, he showed me that he'd been trying to plot hostel locations using Google Earth. Which was, I suppose, kinda cool and all, but I pointed out he'd be better off seeing if any of his options had availability. I suggested he make some calls and showed him how to get an external line from our phone system. He went back to his research and I continued working.
When I got up to go and grab a beverage, I noticed he was still mucking about with Google Earth. Except this time it was Google Earth for his home country. Weird. Definitely not a winning strategy for finding a youth hostel, either. I asked him if he was making any progress and he replied in the negative. I let him know I was going home for the day and told him he could do research from his motel, though the computer needed to stay with me. He began to complain about the fact that the only computer terminal at the motel was in the Lobby and that he didn't like using the computer so publicly.
At this point, the little "WTF" bells began to tinkle in my head. If you need to find a place to stay, does it really matter where you are using the computer? Why are you plotting points in Google Earth close to your house when you need to find affordable lodgings? I decided it was best not to press the point, but did offer him a ride back to his motel since it was on my way home. I figured that gesture of kindness would be enough to absolve me of any self-imposed responsibility. I dropped him off, reminded him to research some youth hostels and headed home.
Since you're reading this story, there's clearly more. A lot more. Like a return to Google - times three - a lost ATM card, purchase of high-end Apple products when monies were in short supply, getting kicked out of a youth hostel for failure to pay, a post-it note handed to me while I was on the phone declaring "I love you," etc.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have just called Security and had him liberated from the building. At the time, I figured that a) I was a big girl and could take care of myself, b) it would all just go away eventually and c) this would turn into some horrifying story lamenting how poorly we care for our visiting students. I was new at the job and it was very important to me that my work have a sterling reputation, so I was far too accommodating. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience about knowing when someone has gone from odd to insane and dealing with it accordingly. I also learned that it was OK to be a generous and loving person without allowing someone to act insanely toward or around you. I learned that I could and darn well should put a clear, full stop to bad behavior in its tracks.
Valuable insights all, ones I likely should have had long before then, and actually had but not in a professional context; I thought perhaps here the rules were different. Of course they aren't. I simply chose to take the experience as useful and put my new found confidence immediately into practice. I left the country that Friday for a three week business trip and put it all behind me, save a small black mark in my mind next to this dude's name. I also figured it is OK to be insane, as long as you do it far, far away from me.
Time passes. Said student says some odd things on our private program mailing list, which I quickly squelch. I figure it's easiest to generally pretend he doesn't exist. Don't feed the energy beast and all that.
Suddenly, I get a random email from said student. I've tried to reproduce the thread in a way that doesn't name names or talk about parties not relevant to this post, but I've realized that I can't. So I'll just say he pinged me about a blog entry that I'd posted on someone else's behalf thinking it was mine, which tells me he was watching a Google blog for items I'd posted. Ugh. The thread ended with this:
I froze when I read this, feeling myself shrink into my sweatshirt. I wanted a really hot shower. I became painfully aware that everyone knows where I work. I briefly considered never posting anything to any of our company blogs again. I was genuinely terrified for a few minutes, unable to move, unable to speak. All it takes is a plane ticket. I am so easy to find.
The stories about reactions around the office are really better looked at in another post. A wise woman told me to just not respond to the message, so I didn't. I archived it, but still felt tense and a bit sick. All it takes is a plane ticket.
I got pinged at random by someone I knew would know this person a few days later. I hadn't intended to, but I spilled my guts to him. Told him I was just freaked out. He told me not to worry about it and that he'd take care of it. And that's exactly what he did. If I wanted to feel like I had my power back, that certainly did the trick. Everyone who heard about my drama was so supportive. I felt righteous. Good triumphed.
So why tell this story, why now and what does it have to do with that message that has been sitting in my inbox since March 15th?
Said mail is from a colleague of mine, asking me if said student's name rang a bell. Apparently she was told that there was a "communication/cultural issue" between us. Though no one else named names, I heard from a few other friends some things that made it pretty clear that this version of the story has been spread far and wide.
So a few points I'd like to make to clear up any confusion whatsoever and to provide the "feedback" that this person never got but was apparently desperate to hear so he could understand his mistake and improve:
1) I don't want to hear about what happens before you go to sleep at night. Ever. I seriously doubt any woman who is not romantically involved with you in some way does either. Keep it to yourself.
2) I do not want to know that you think about me or that you find excuses to email me. Your obsessions are your own business. Leave me the hell out of them.
3) Suggesting that you rethink our conversations each day shows that you are not a healthy person. If that's insufficient evidence, perhaps the knowledge that you wear the same shirt every two days and that you have memorabilia I gave you strewn all over your house can confirm this for you and anyone else who cares to read this post.
4) Perhaps it's just my obsession with the nuances of language, but "every time I do a commit I think of you" is not an appropriate thing to say to someone. Every time you put your code into a repository you think of me? Extrapolate that with a not-too-heavy dose of Freud thrown in and you will understand exactly what I'm saying.
5) Suggesting that cultural differences are responsible for some sort of misunderstanding between the two of us is not only disingenuous it is an attempt to make me look like I am somehow responsible for the situation. I am not.
6) Suggesting that problems arose from my misinterpretation of your words is rank cowardice. You chose to send that message, so take responsibility for doing so. There is no misinterpreting what you said. Your meaning is plain.
One final note to folks who may be in situations where they hear stories about odd reactions from women they otherwise know to be relatively sane: try asking the woman for her side of the story. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have heard from my male friends that perhaps I ought not to call everyone "dear" had they known what had been sent to me. It's rather hurtful to hear from people you genuinely respect that you should change who you are because it has clearly caused some poor, misguided person to misunderstand you. It is incredibly hurtful when you know that said person isn't the slightest bit confused, but has simply chosen to blame you for their troubles rather than accepting responsibility for inappropriate behavior.
I want to thank my colleague who mailed me, made no assumptions, just asked me if I knew this person's name. That, my dears, is really the best way to go about investigating such things.
I feel better now. Secret's out. Thanks for listening to my side of the story.
/me archives mail from March 15th
Every time I look at what I've posted, I think of the real stories that underlie what I've written and realize "Wow, this is the boring version." But then again I spend a great deal of time around people who cherish their privacy above much else. Who knows if my friend wants me to reveal our heated debate over the indexing one's hosted web mail, both of us finally agreeing that the only real answer is if it's that important to you, you need to admin your own mail server? Perhaps it's not quite right to talk about the great woman I met while traveling, geeky and an artist, and how I hope she gets on well with my other friend. The stories I heard about Hurricane Katrina from my close friends, and now new friends I made during my recent visit to New Orleans, are not my stories; it seems like insensitivity of the cruelest kind to rant about what I've heard when those who actually experienced this suffering stoically muse through what happened to them.
Some people I know want no trace of themselves out in the online world; others I remember to ask, so defaulting to strict privacy is not the only option. Let's not even get into the realm of what one does not discuss on one's blog if maintaining the veneer of professionalism. The stories seem so much less without names, the faces they conjure up, the histories I've learned, and the corresponding tangibility that comes with them. Still, these are not my secrets to share nor stories to tell.
So, I have one that I feel like sharing now. It's only mine.
There has been an email sitting in my inbox since March 15th. I'm a bit behind on mail at the moment, but not that behind. It's sitting in there because, literally, I've been sitting on it as a reminder to do something about it. Here goes. I've abridged the background a great deal (and yes it is still really long) but if people really want to hear the whole story they are welcome to let me know and I'll see if I can find time for it. It's bloody amusing at this point, though at the time it was just darn strange and uncomfortable.
After my first Summer of Code, I heard from many students who wanted to come by the big-G to tour the campus and give a presentation on their project; needless to say, the famous free lunch figured prominently in each visit. I received yet another such mail from a student, letting me know he'd decided to spend his program stipend to come to the United States, and letting me know he wanted to visit Google. He also asked if I wouldn't mind picking him up at the airport. I'm a nice person, he was coming in on a Saturday and the San Jose Airport was all of fifteen minutes drive from my house. I said yes and made arrangements to do so.
When I met said student at the airport, I immediately noticed that he was both odd and completely out of his element. Odd, I can deal with though. I work with Open Source communities. Odd is something of the order of the day. Besides, being a bit odd myself, I tend to suspend judgement about the oddness of others, usually with great success. On the out of his element front, it was simply a feeling that this person wasn't well equipped to cope with the strangeness of American suburbia that those of us who live within it take for granted. It struck me that he was from a small town in a country very far away, and he was ill prepared experience-wise and finances-wise for the madness of the Silicon Valley concrete jungle. Dose of extreme culture shock, coming right up. I noticed it even in his reaction to the freeway as I drove him to his lodgings.
I dropped him off at his motel, a clean and inexpensive place in Mountain View. He asked if I'd like to get together the next day. I had a friend from out of town coming for lunch, so I suggested he join us. I picked him up and brought him to our house, where we ate and chatted for a bit. The four of us. One friend, one Ben, one me, one student. When doing due diligence later, it was confirmed that no one got the creepy vibe from him, simply the odd vibe.
Plot point: I'd just like to reiterate that he met my fiancé on his second day in the country.
Lunch proceeded as lunches among those who were newly-strangers often does. Polite conversation. Inquiries about travel experiences. Questions about what said student planned to do during visit. Food was consumed. TV was watched. Student was quiet and tended to stare at people a bit, but when I asked if he was comfortable he simply apologized for his poor English. I felt a bit bad for him, as he was clearly ashamed, told him not to worry about it as I spoke terrible [language censored to protect the guilty], and took him back to his motel. He asked about visiting Google on Monday, so I said sure, gave him instructions on where to ask for me, the usual.
Monday rolled around and promptly at 10:00 reception informed me I had a visitor. He'd apparently learned to navigate the none too easy to understand local public transit, which gave me hope that he was adapting quickly and would have a good time of it while in California. I headed out and gave my student visitor the usual tour of Google's campus, reminding him to keep an eye on the cafés so he could decide where he wanted to have lunch. He declined; apparently he'd met another Google employee while at Church that weekend, and planned to have lunch with him. A cafe off main campus had, apparently, been recommended. Making new friends in a strange place, another very positive sign. Maybe he wasn't the country bumpkin I'd thought him to be.
I showed him the sights, genuinely happy; the apprehension I had about his getting along here evaporated, replaced with a well-deserved bout of mental self-flagellation for imposing my uninformed white American values on my poor unassuming visitor. Resolutions to be a better person made, notes on lesson learned made.
We ended our tour at my desk, where the traditional raiding of the swag cabinet occurred, and it was good. Swag was obtained for family and fiancée. Existence of fiancée is also reassuring, as it confirms that all that staring is, in fact, just a personal quirk. The usual geek oddness. Nothing to see here, move along. Fantastic.
He asked me to call my co-worker for him and mentioned the name of someone I knew from our Legal department; he hadn't gotten his number. Well, since he didn't have a phone with him, why would he? Co-worker came over and the two of them departed for lunch further afield, student leaving his stuff at my desk since he was now so swag laden as to make walking impossible. I sipped coffee and settled back into the project I'd been working on an hour and a half ago.
A lunch's worth of time passed. Co-worker returned student to my desk. He asks me if I can read something for him. I say sure. He hands me a pamphlet from a local Church advertising its shelter services for the homeless. Whoa. I ask him where he got it, and he told me he had asked the Priest for a place to stay while he was visiting, but was told that it was not possible. He asked me again what the flyer said about where he could find a place to stay, as the motel was expensive and he wanted to save his money.
I was afraid if I explained to him what he was actually holding it would embarrass him terribly. I didn't know how to explain that such trends of hospitality are not really known any longer among my people. That we had been like that once, a long long time ago, but not any more. That I thought his way was a lot better after all, and I could even get into a long exegesis on the rhetoric and perceived cultural value of hospitality among the Celts and early Anglo-Saxons, and how this influenced the creation of our legal system, but that was probably going a bit too far. I couldn't even tell him what he was holding meant.
I told him that it wasn't relevant and suggested he research youth hostels. I let him know that most of them were up in San Francisco and that he could get the Caltrain. He asked me to research options for him and I pointed out to him that I was in the middle of my work day, but had a spare computer to lend him. I set him up with our guest wireless and a computer and told him to let me know if he needed anything. He sat quietly for a couple of hours as I burned through my inbox.
When he finally came over, he showed me that he'd been trying to plot hostel locations using Google Earth. Which was, I suppose, kinda cool and all, but I pointed out he'd be better off seeing if any of his options had availability. I suggested he make some calls and showed him how to get an external line from our phone system. He went back to his research and I continued working.
When I got up to go and grab a beverage, I noticed he was still mucking about with Google Earth. Except this time it was Google Earth for his home country. Weird. Definitely not a winning strategy for finding a youth hostel, either. I asked him if he was making any progress and he replied in the negative. I let him know I was going home for the day and told him he could do research from his motel, though the computer needed to stay with me. He began to complain about the fact that the only computer terminal at the motel was in the Lobby and that he didn't like using the computer so publicly.
At this point, the little "WTF" bells began to tinkle in my head. If you need to find a place to stay, does it really matter where you are using the computer? Why are you plotting points in Google Earth close to your house when you need to find affordable lodgings? I decided it was best not to press the point, but did offer him a ride back to his motel since it was on my way home. I figured that gesture of kindness would be enough to absolve me of any self-imposed responsibility. I dropped him off, reminded him to research some youth hostels and headed home.
Since you're reading this story, there's clearly more. A lot more. Like a return to Google - times three - a lost ATM card, purchase of high-end Apple products when monies were in short supply, getting kicked out of a youth hostel for failure to pay, a post-it note handed to me while I was on the phone declaring "I love you," etc.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have just called Security and had him liberated from the building. At the time, I figured that a) I was a big girl and could take care of myself, b) it would all just go away eventually and c) this would turn into some horrifying story lamenting how poorly we care for our visiting students. I was new at the job and it was very important to me that my work have a sterling reputation, so I was far too accommodating. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience about knowing when someone has gone from odd to insane and dealing with it accordingly. I also learned that it was OK to be a generous and loving person without allowing someone to act insanely toward or around you. I learned that I could and darn well should put a clear, full stop to bad behavior in its tracks.
Valuable insights all, ones I likely should have had long before then, and actually had but not in a professional context; I thought perhaps here the rules were different. Of course they aren't. I simply chose to take the experience as useful and put my new found confidence immediately into practice. I left the country that Friday for a three week business trip and put it all behind me, save a small black mark in my mind next to this dude's name. I also figured it is OK to be insane, as long as you do it far, far away from me.
Time passes. Said student says some odd things on our private program mailing list, which I quickly squelch. I figure it's easiest to generally pretend he doesn't exist. Don't feed the energy beast and all that.
Suddenly, I get a random email from said student. I've tried to reproduce the thread in a way that doesn't name names or talk about parties not relevant to this post, but I've realized that I can't. So I'll just say he pinged me about a blog entry that I'd posted on someone else's behalf thinking it was mine, which tells me he was watching a Google blog for items I'd posted. Ugh. The thread ended with this:
"funny I heard your laugh in my head :D
thinking of you ? honey... everyday I wake up I see the computer you
helped me to buy, I wear the t-shirt you gave me once each 2 days, I
have google pens all around the house, everytime i do a commit I
remember GSoC so I remember you, almost every night when I go sleep I
still rethink all the talks we had in Google and I process a new thing
you said everyday. You know you talk so fast that I still have our
conversation stored on my RAM being evaluated by a process in
background ;)
by the other hand you are the one supposed to forget about me soon...
why do you think I email you at least once a month with any kind of
excuse ;)
but really, we would love to have you in the forum... think about it :)"
I froze when I read this, feeling myself shrink into my sweatshirt. I wanted a really hot shower. I became painfully aware that everyone knows where I work. I briefly considered never posting anything to any of our company blogs again. I was genuinely terrified for a few minutes, unable to move, unable to speak. All it takes is a plane ticket. I am so easy to find.
The stories about reactions around the office are really better looked at in another post. A wise woman told me to just not respond to the message, so I didn't. I archived it, but still felt tense and a bit sick. All it takes is a plane ticket.
I got pinged at random by someone I knew would know this person a few days later. I hadn't intended to, but I spilled my guts to him. Told him I was just freaked out. He told me not to worry about it and that he'd take care of it. And that's exactly what he did. If I wanted to feel like I had my power back, that certainly did the trick. Everyone who heard about my drama was so supportive. I felt righteous. Good triumphed.
So why tell this story, why now and what does it have to do with that message that has been sitting in my inbox since March 15th?
Said mail is from a colleague of mine, asking me if said student's name rang a bell. Apparently she was told that there was a "communication/cultural issue" between us. Though no one else named names, I heard from a few other friends some things that made it pretty clear that this version of the story has been spread far and wide.
So a few points I'd like to make to clear up any confusion whatsoever and to provide the "feedback" that this person never got but was apparently desperate to hear so he could understand his mistake and improve:
1) I don't want to hear about what happens before you go to sleep at night. Ever. I seriously doubt any woman who is not romantically involved with you in some way does either. Keep it to yourself.
2) I do not want to know that you think about me or that you find excuses to email me. Your obsessions are your own business. Leave me the hell out of them.
3) Suggesting that you rethink our conversations each day shows that you are not a healthy person. If that's insufficient evidence, perhaps the knowledge that you wear the same shirt every two days and that you have memorabilia I gave you strewn all over your house can confirm this for you and anyone else who cares to read this post.
4) Perhaps it's just my obsession with the nuances of language, but "every time I do a commit I think of you" is not an appropriate thing to say to someone. Every time you put your code into a repository you think of me? Extrapolate that with a not-too-heavy dose of Freud thrown in and you will understand exactly what I'm saying.
5) Suggesting that cultural differences are responsible for some sort of misunderstanding between the two of us is not only disingenuous it is an attempt to make me look like I am somehow responsible for the situation. I am not.
6) Suggesting that problems arose from my misinterpretation of your words is rank cowardice. You chose to send that message, so take responsibility for doing so. There is no misinterpreting what you said. Your meaning is plain.
One final note to folks who may be in situations where they hear stories about odd reactions from women they otherwise know to be relatively sane: try asking the woman for her side of the story. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have heard from my male friends that perhaps I ought not to call everyone "dear" had they known what had been sent to me. It's rather hurtful to hear from people you genuinely respect that you should change who you are because it has clearly caused some poor, misguided person to misunderstand you. It is incredibly hurtful when you know that said person isn't the slightest bit confused, but has simply chosen to blame you for their troubles rather than accepting responsibility for inappropriate behavior.
I want to thank my colleague who mailed me, made no assumptions, just asked me if I knew this person's name. That, my dears, is really the best way to go about investigating such things.
I feel better now. Secret's out. Thanks for listening to my side of the story.
/me archives mail from March 15th
Labels: secrets
posted by Leslie Hawthorn at 11:05 PM
4 comments
